Where Is Your Attention? | Nate Ross

What up, Crossing Nation? I am so glad that you came to

church today because today you're going to get the

opportunity to hear from my friend Nate Ross.

Nate Ross and I have known each other for over 20 years.

He has been twice named the lead pastor of one of the fastest

growing churches in America, but most recently, he redirected his

efforts and he founded an organization called Moments to

Movements. He's been here before.

You've loved it when he was here.

So would you please give a warm crossing welcome to our friend

and speaker for the day, Nate Ross Crossing Family.

It is an absolute honor and gift to be with you guys today.

Clayton lied. I haven't known him from 20

years. I've known him for 25 years

because we're officially getting old now.

We're a bunch of Uncle Ricos actually.

Actually at church camp was his counselor and he was my student.

So if you need some dirt on your pastor, I'll meet you in the

lobby after the service. Now, I tell you, Clayton has

been a good friend to me, and even though I'm a little bit

older than him, I've been a pastor for the last 18 years.

I've become the student and he's become the teacher.

And I just got to let you know you have one of the most

phenomenally gifted pastors, not just in America, but in the

world. God has raised him up.

I'm so grateful for him. I know there's no perfect

pastor. There's no perfect church,

right? But God gifts us and he calls us

and one is this. Not only is it just a treat to

be here because I love him and I love this church crossing

family. You guys are celebrating over 50

baptisms this weekend coming out of baptism, like, and I'm

talking like, like, it's not like, oh, that's neat, you know,

and I should probably get baptized.

I'm talking about radical stories.

Thursday night after I preached, we watched the stories and it

won. It was a wife who baptized her

husband who's been praying for and walking with her for a long

time. There was another moment right

after the first service. There was a baptism at the end

of the service, a guy by the name of Justin.

And a year ago, Justin was hired by the church to come and

replace the front of the baptistery.

Now here's what's so cool. Justin knew while he was

replacing the baptistery, the Lord was already speaking to his

heart. You need to get in there.

And a year later today we celebrated his baptism.

I'm telling you like you just can't, like you can't make this

stuff up. And This is why we're doing this

series called Some Assembly required because God is saying

I'm inviting you into this. That's why last week and we

talked about baptism, that Jesus was baptized and the Scriptures

say when Peter preached repent and be baptized that we would

walk in obedience, that we would get to partner with him.

And I'll be honest, when Clayton was telling me about the series

and what you guys are doing over the next couple weeks, I got a

little bit nervous, not theologically, but just

personally because I am relationally wired.

But I am not mechanically minded at all, right?

And my spiritual gift is holding the flashlight for somebody else

to fix what I broke, right? And my wife and I, we make a

good team. I break it, she fixes it.

That's kind of how it goes in my house.

Matter of fact, I'll try to fix something and she'll just kind

of stand there and smirk, like, isn't that cute, right?

And and then after a while, I can't fix anything.

And I'll get all frustrated and she'll just smile and she'll say

these words. You want me to call my dad and

I'm like, how long did it take? Yes, I want you to call your

dad. And now here's the only thing.

This is why I get nervous because when I heard that

phrase, some assembly required, what I was immediately reminded

of is everything that I lack and everything that I need and

everything that I do not possess.

The only thing with Jesus is this.

When he invites us into his story and to take steps of

faith, He already knows we don't have what it takes.

We don't have enough. And what he's saying is I'm not

here to shame you. I'm here to save you.

I'm here to lead you out of your life of sin.

I'm not asking you to get my attention.

What I'm asking you to do is allow me to own your heart and

your life and to save you and to draw you out.

Matter of fact, if you study the life of Jesus, this is what's

amazing. And every miracle that Jesus

did, sometimes we go, yeah, well, he's just Superman.

He's the one who can do it. If you study the life of Jesus,

every miracle he did, somebody had to participate in the

miracle. Jesus goes, Oh no, no, no.

I'm not just some magician and I'm not just going to show up

and kind of presto, change your life.

You're going to follow me. You're going to begin to step

into this life. I have the water in the wine.

You go, where did they participate in that?

Go fill the vats with water. See Jesus when he invites us,

when he comes into our life, He's going.

Come on, I need you to join me in the work.

And so here's what we're going to look at today.

Last week we looked at baptism, and today we're looking at this,

the gathering. Why is it that we gather some of

you like, I know because Nate, have you ever heard of this

thing called brunch? It is from heaven, right?

You know, and you're like, it'd be so much easier if we didn't

have to gather, right? Suck it, suck it, eat brunch.

That's why a lot of you go to Thursday night because you're

like, I want my Jesus and I want my brunch, right?

You know, I want best of both, right?

Or we say stuff like this. Well, can I just watch it

online? And and hey, I'm not against any

dating app stuff like that, right?

In the name of the Lord. But here's the thing.

If you meet somebody online, do you just keep dating online

forever? It's like, Nope, sometimes you

got to meet face to face, right? And here's the thing, so many

times for us in the gathering, here's what ends up happening.

We begin to reduce it down to just our attendance.

For the past 18 years, I've been a pastor, grew up as a pastor's

kid. I did some number calculating

when Clayton told me this. I've calculated I've gone to

over 3000 church services in my life.

And some of you are like, and that's all the spiritual you

are. I know I need to keep going,

right? You know, But here sometimes we

think the gathering is only about our attendance and that's

it. I, I loved when I was a lead

pastor, I would go to the grocery store and I would meet

people in the grocery store and I'd love just to hear their

story. And they would hey, nay, and

they'd know me from church and, and we would talk and then their

eyes would get real big and, and I knew what was coming next.

And it's because they hadn't been to church in like a year.

And they were like, I promise I'll be there this weekend, you

know? And I'm like, hey, OK, all

right, That that is fine. Like it's OK.

Like, hey. And then this was the question

I'd ask. But what what's got up to in

your life? Like really just does God have

your attention? See, too many times.

Here's the problem. We've made the gathering just

about attendance when the gathering has always been about

God having our attention. See, this is what Jesus is up to

when we come in here today. Often times this is the problem

that we face. So many other things will have

our attention other than God. John Tyson, one of my favorite

pastors to listen to out of New York City said this.

He said it's amazing when we come into church we expect to

experience anything else but the presence of God.

We expect to come into the church.

Music better be good. And you're sitting there and

you're like, oh, they messed up a note, they got work to do,

right? Or we come in and we go, this is

the free coffee you're putting out, right?

Or we go, hey, this check in line for my kids taking too long

or some of you already thinking they're like, how long is this

guy going to go? Don't worry, Clayton has me on a

clock and they'll pull me off stage if I go over time.

All right, don't worry, right? The preacher's going to go

short. But oftentimes what happens is

this, we come into this place and we expect to experience

anything other than the presence of God.

So why do we gather? Why is it that we're here and

why is it actually a big deal? What I want to invite you to do

is if you have a Bible or a Bible app, I want to invite you

to open to Luke chapter 4. What we're going to do today is

Luke 4 · chapter mention

we're going to look at Jesus's first sermon because Jesus

doesn't just preach an incredible sermon.

Jesus actually lays out why we gather, why the gathering

matters. Well, why if you're maybe

watching online, God's doing a good work even as you're online.

And we pray and hope that you would take a step to beginning

to be at one of our physical locations.

But if you have your Bible, I want to invite you to turn to

Luke chapter 4, Matthew, Mark, Luke.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

It's in the New Testament. It'll be up on the screen.

But here's what happened. Jesus shows up to the synagogue,

which was basically like church for the Jews, and he preaches

his first sermon. And the only problem was this,

the people were in attendance, but they did not have their

attention on Jesus. Here's my prayer for our time

today and the rest of our time today and actually for the rest

of the week. It's this.

It's a you and I would put our attention on Jesus this week,

this moment. May that be your prayer.

Jesus, where do you want to get my attention today?

Jesus right now is I'm about ready to go into work.

Where do you want me to focus my attention on?

Where do you want to lead me today?

In Luke chapter 4, Jesus shows up to the synagogue and he

Luke 4 · chapter mention

preaches his first sermon. And listen what he says in verse

16. It says he went up to Nazareth

where he had been brought up, goes to his hometown, and on the

Sabbath day he went into the synagogue as was his custom.

Wait, Jesus went to church his whole life growing up.

Jesus went to church his whole life growing up, which means

this. If Jesus did it, guess what that

means for you and I? We better do it, right?

Turns out, if Jesus does it, we better participate in this,

right? And it's not just about

attendance, because this is what we know.

When Jesus faced temptation, if you remember this, he didn't

just quote some good thoughts, He quoted scripture back to

Satan. Where did he get that from?

From synagogue. The scripture in the church in

the gathering was a part of his life growing up.

It was his custom and he stood up to read in the scroll of the

prophet Isaiah was handed to him.

Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written and he

quotes Isaiah 61. He says the Spirit of the Lord

is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the

poor. So if you need good news today,

Jesus has come to give you good news.

He sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery

of sight for the blind. If you need to be set free

today, you are in the right place.

And Jesus has said, I've come to set you free to release the

oppressed and proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

And I'm telling you, you're going to experience this at the

end of the service today. You are going to see people set

free through baptism. And then Jesus rolled up the

scroll. He gave it back to the

attendant, and he sat down in the eyes of everyone in the

synagogue were fastened on him, and he began to say this to him.

Today the Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words

that came from his lips. But then somebody said, isn't

this Joseph's son? They asked, here's the tension,

are they going to put their attention on Jesus or not?

Jesus said I have fulfilled Scripture.

I am your hope, I am your deliverer.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.

I'm the fulfillment of all Old Testament promise.

I am the true Israelite, but in that's Joseph's kid.

Then Jesus said to them, surely you will quote this proverb to

me. Physician, heal yourself.

Do here in your hometown what you've heard, what we've heard

you do in Capernaum. I tell you the truth, he

continued. No prophet is is accepted in his

hometown. I assure you that you were, that

there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time when the sky

was shut for 3 1/2 years and there was a severe famine

throughout the land. Jesus starts taking their

attention elsewhere. He's like, I want to tell you

about God because you're obviously missing it, he said.

Yet he said what happened was this.

Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in

Zarephath in the region of Sidon.

What Jesus was saying is this, hey, he came for you.

But good news is this. He didn't just come here for

you, He came here for the world. Do you see the world as God sees

the world? And you know how you and I see

the world? By first putting our attention

on Jesus. This is what he's doing.

He's going, oh, yeah, these people that you disregard,

actually God wants to save them. And then he goes on to say this.

And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of

Elisha the prophet. Yet not one of them was

cleansed, only naming the Syrian.

He goes back to an outsider outside the Jewish race.

Now, here's kind of a rule as a pastor, this is often times in

churches, this is how you get the job.

The pastor, you come and you preach a trial sermon.

Typically it's the best sermon you have.

Everybody likes it, You get hired and then it kind of all

goes down from there, right? You know what I'm saying?

We're like, man, that was so good.

Where's the other sermons and stuff like that?

You're like, well, that was the only one I got right.

And here's what happens. You come in and and you, you're

supposed to win the crowd over and get everybody's approval.

Well, listen, what Jesus does in this moment, He's shaking them

to their core because he's going.

You're in attendance, but you do not have your attention on me.

Listen, what the crowd says, says all the people in the

synagogue were furious when they heard this, meaning this, that

God actually cared about anybody outside the Jewish race because

they didn't care about it. Be careful when your God looks

only like you, because oftentimes who you're following

is not God, it's just you. They were furious and they got

up and they drove Jesus out of the town and they took him to

the to the brow of the hill on which the town was built in

order to throw him off the Cliff.

Heck of a trial sermon, Jesus, right?

How'd it go? Well, they tried to throw me off

a Cliff today, right? You know, we're like, whoa,

right? But he walked right through the

crowd and went on his way. Here's the good news for you and

I today. Jesus has a new way for you and

I to view the gathering. He has a new invitation, maybe

for you. You've asked this, Why do I come

to church? Why am I here?

Why do I, do I really have to be here?

And do we have to sing loud enough so we can get God's

attention? Is he like sleeping?

Did he hit the snooze button? Like where is God?

No, no, no. Here's the good news about

Jesus. We're not here singing hopefully

to get his attention. Here's the thing, whether you

know it or not, you've already had God's attention your whole

life. He made you, He knows you, He

loves you. Let's come to set you free.

See, this is the beauty of Jesus.

As we look at this, the reason why we have the gathering and

what he lined out is this. Just three things about why we

gather that we're going to look at today is simply this.

The gathering is simply about this.

It's about the presence of God, the people of God, and the

purposes of God. See, it's not just one thing

about why we gather here today. And if you're not a believer,

like Clayton talks about being on the faith spectrum, if you're

not a believer yet, man, we want you to keep coming.

We want you to keep asking questions today.

And here on the 48th Street campus during the service is our

outlet opportunity to get plugged in.

If you're at a different campus, we have places and opportunities

for you to get connected here. But the three things Jesus does

in this passage is this. He goes, here's why we gather.

We gather to experience the presence of God, the people of

God, and the purposes of God. The only thing is this, here's

what's going to get in our way. When we start valuing our

preferences over the presence of God, we will lose out on all

that God has for us. See, Jesus says I've come and

this is how he starts his sermon.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.

He's anointed me to preach good news to you.

Do you believe and just be honest?

You don't say it out loud or even tell anybody around you,

but do you believe that God actually knows you, loves you

and knows every detail of your life and it's OK just in your

heart of hearts to go, I hear you.

But no, This is why you'll hear this over and over again at the

Crossing Church. Our whole goal here is simply

this, to help you start an intimate personal relationship

with Jesus Christ because everything that you want to

change in your life actually doesn't start with your

performance. It starts with the presence of

Jesus in your life. Everything that you want to

accomplish in your life actually will fail if it's built on your

power, not on the presence of Jesus.

This is why Jesus, he shows up and all throughout the Old

Testament, this is what you see God doing because Israel

basically, I'll just summarize the whole Old Testament is this

God saves them, pulls them out of Egypt, and then here it goes

back and forth. All they do is this.

They keep forgetting God and then they go, Oh God, would you

help us? And he's like, I will help you,

right? And then they forget God and

they keep going back. And what they keep doing is

this, they keep ignoring the presence of God.

Even in Second Kings, what happened is this, there were

kings that rose up that would do what was right in God's eye.

The only thing is this, they would not give their lives over

to the presence of God. This is what it says in Second

2 Kings 12:2

Kings chapter 12 verse 2. It says Joash did what was right

in the eyes of the Lord. Awesome.

Joe Ash, this is so good. And he did it all the years of

yeah, ho yada. The priest has.

He instructed him. But then here it is.

You ready? But the high places, however,

were not removed. And the people continued to

offer sacrifices and burnt incense there.

What it means is this. The people of God, Israel, they

were in attendance, but God didn't have their attention.

God wasn't their deepest desire of their heart.

They did what was right. They just didn't take down the

high places. They kept those to other gods.

They kept those to other idols. This is why I my favorite part

of the service that you guys do here at the crossing is the time

when you guys move to a time of decision.

And you know why it's so powerful?

It's because what you see is this.

You see people tearing down their high places and saying no

God, your presence above everything else in my life.

And I'm telling you, This is why we need the gathering.

Some of you, you came in here today, weary, worn out.

Some of you, you came in here today by yourself going, man, I

tell you what, if I walk into that place, that roof's going to

fall in. I know it, right?

I know it. Like literally, that was just

your thought. Oh, man, this place is going to,

you know, if I walk in there. No, no, no.

This is why Jesus shows up. He says my spirit is upon me.

He's anointed me to preach good news to those who feel like they

do not belong, good news to those who feel like they've been

forgotten. God's presence is here, and

oftentimes we begin to settle for our preferences.

Matter of fact, this kind of, there's a buzzword that's

happened in Christianity called consumer Christianity, and it's

like, yeah, people just go to the church for the coffee and

they don't even go in. They just check their kids in

and then they just have coffee in the lobby.

They don't even go to the service.

Somebody like, I'm doing that next week.

Don't do that next week, all right?

You know what I'm saying? You know, all this other stuff.

And you're like, yeah, it really doesn't matter.

And it's, you know, Christians are just becoming consumer

Christianity, and we think that's something new.

Can I just let you know? Consumer Christianity began in

the garden when Adam and Eve began to consume anything other

than God's best for them. And what's happened is now we've

become that. And we've taken our attention

off of Jesus. Matter of fact, it happened in

the life of the early church in the church in Corinth.

Sometime we go, why don't we just be like the early church?

They had it all together. No, can I actually let you know

the early church was very immature and broken, just like

us. In First Corinthians chapter 3,

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

Paul has to write to the church because they start playing

favorites in the church saying stuff like this.

I like it better when John leads worship.

No, I like it when Corey leads the decision time.

No, I like it when Clayton. No, I liked it better with

Jerry. No, I like all this other stuff,

real spiritually mature stuff. Right in the church, of course,

right. And listen what it says in First

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

Corinthians chapter 3, Paul has to write a letter.

He's like church, grow up. Listen what he says.

He says what after all, is Apollos And what is Paul?

Only servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord had

us assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos

watered it, but God made it grow.

So neither he who planted nor he who waters is anything but only

God who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man

who waters has one purpose, and each will be rewarded according

to his own labor. For we here it is.

You ready are God's fellow workers.

You're God's field. God's building.

Do you believe that? That you're God's fellow worker?

That God actually wants to do his work through you in this

world? That you're not just his fellow

worker, you're his field? That God is producing his fruit

that blesses others through your life?

And not only that you are God's building that he resides in you

through the power of the Holy Spirit that he gives you his

power that he's going. It is my presence in your life

that if you notice he says these words, we are.

This is why Jesus prayed on the night he was being betrayed

going to the cross. He said, Father, would you make

him one because here's Satan's ploy.

You ready? He wants to divide every church

that he can. He wants to divide every campus

of the crossing. He wants to bring as much

turmoil. He wants you fighting on the way

here to church. So when you come in, all of your

attention is off of him. Somebody like, how did you know

that? I got three kids of my own,

right? And I already come in praying

more prayers. Help me Jesus, right?

You know, like there's a get them checked in, right?

You know, and everybody just say, OK, now let's sing, right?

And you come in here, man, you got all these things going on.

And that man, that is the way he wants to distract us.

He wants us to keep his eyes off his presence because this is

what Satan knows and this is what he won't do.

The demons say this. They acknowledge Jesus, they

just won't put their attention on Him.

Satan's deal was this. I will not worship you.

Why does the gathering matter? Because it's a soul issue.

It's a heart issue, it's a returning home to your heavenly

Father issue. Jesus is the Spirit of the Lord

is upon me. He's anointed me.

I'm here to pour out my presence on you.

Second thing though is this, not only does he give us his

presence, it's about being his people over a personality.

You don't have to wait to become like Clayton to experience God's

blessing in your life. Some of your like, great,

because I'm an introvert and I could never be that loud, right?

And here's the thing, we need Clayton.

And not only do we need Clayton, we need you.

We need the body, We need the people of God.

This is why I love watching folks.

And you'll see this at the end. You'll see folks who baptize

friends, some that they met at the gym at the last service,

some that they met from work, some in their own home.

One of the most powerful baptisms at the end of first

service was this. It was an older sister that

baptized her younger brother. And it's you and I accepting

that God has said, not only has he given us his presence, he's

going, you are my people. This is why when Jesus preaches

this, they were so furious because they wouldn't accept

that God wants to reach the World through them.

They just wanted to create their own world.

And that's what was so disruptive from Jesus.

He's going, no, I'm drawing your attention back on him.

Matter of fact, this is what God tells Israel in Exodus 19 before

he gives them the 10 commandments.

He's like, I want you to remember who you are.

It's about who you are as the people of God.

Listen what it says in Exodus 19 verse four, God says this to

him. He says you yourselves have seen

what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on the eagle's wings

and I brought you to myself. You didn't save yourself, I

saved you. You had no way out.

You were a slave for 400 years. And now if you obey me fully and

keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be my

treasured possession. Is that how you think God thinks

about you? AW Tozer says it this way.

The most important thing about us is what we think about God.

Do you believe he sees you as his treasured possession?

He's come to rescue you. He's come to save you.

And then he goes on. He says this.

Not only will you be my treasured possession, he says

although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a

Kingdom of priest and a holy nation.

Well, what does a priest do? A Kingdom of priest and a holy

nation. Whoa, what in the world?

Hang on. Right.

I'm just getting baptized now. I'm a Kingdom of priest.

Here's what a Kingdom of priest does.

The people of God you serve. That's what a priest does.

You serve and you sacrifice. This is why the the beauty.

There's nothing like the church on the face of the earth.

You have CE OS in here, you have custodians in here, you have

people with checkered past in here.

You have Cubs fans in here, right.

You know what I'm saying? Like you're like, help us Jesus,

right? Only Jesus can bring Cubs and

cards fans together, right and to get along right, and this is

what he's doing. He brings people together and

This is why he even says it in this order that you are my

treasured possession and now you'll be my Kingdom of priests.

You have my presence and now I want you to go be my people.

What he's saying is this, it's about your identity before your

activity, you better know who you are.

This is why we gather when we sing.

We remember there's a verse that often times gets misquoted that

Jesus says in Matthew chapter 18 and we and we refer to the

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

church service when it says verse 20, it says for where two

or three come together in my name, there I am also.

And we're like, see, that's why we need to gather because when

two or three come together, there's Jesus as well.

And when you read all of Matthew 18, it's actually about church

discipline. And the reason why Jesus says it

is this because when you get 2 Christians together, conflict is

going to break out. Help us Jesus, right?

And he says, hey, This is why you need this gathering.

This is why we need people all around us, because when we run

this race alone, that's when destruction hits.

I don't know about you, but the worst mistakes I've made in my

life are decisions that I made alone.

I don't know about you either, but every imaginary conversation

I've had with somebody else, I've always won and they've

always lost, right? And not only did they lost, I

gave them 15 reasons why they lost, right?

Oh, yeah. Well, Bah, Bah, Bah, Bah, right?

My wife will literally lean over.

She'll catch me. Like, I'm having this imaginary

conversation. She'll go, who you talking to?

Like, right, You saw that, right?

And here's what happens, right? By myself, man, everything makes

sense until I say it out loud. And then believers, specifically

people who are more mature than me, when they hear it, they go,

can I challenge you on something?

Can I point out a blind spot to you?

Can I help you with this? And I'm like, please.

So This is why we need the people of God because we don't

have it all figured out. Our point of view doesn't know

everything. First, Peter chapter 2 quotes

Exodus 19. He goes, God is continuing to do

this. He's continuing to pour out his

presence. He's continuing to make as his

people listen, what it says. Peter quotes Exodus 19.

He reminds us, he says you are a chosen people.

You're chosen by God. He has blessed us with Jesus.

He's chosen us. That you're a royal priesthood,

a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may

declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness and

into his wonderful light. You are not a people, but now

you are the people of God. You once had not received mercy,

but now you have received mercy. So this is what it means to be

the people of God that we walk into this place going I need

mercy. If you study all throughout the

Bible, you go, well, I want to find a family in the Bible so I

can model my family after that family.

You will not find it because here's why every family in all

of time is jacked up. So if your family is jacked up,

you are in the right place. Some of you like thank you Jesus

right and this is what I love about the body of Christ got a

saying I want to pour out my spirit.

Well, I love the crossing family.

Is this Ben? I've got to know your executive

pastor here over the past couple years.

And what I love about it is this Ben used to be a principal.

Now he's an executive pastor, which is kind of, I guess like

the same thing, right? You know, you're just, you're

kind of keeping all things in order.

And then another guy here on staff that I've gotten to know

is Casey Grant. He's the Monmouth campus pastor.

And if you don't know Casey, he used to be a banker and now he's

a pastor. And here's what I love about

both those guys. Before they became pastors, they

were great people of God. Matter of fact, I just got to

mention this if you saw it in the video, Casey baptized his

dad last weekend during baptism weekend.

And how can we just celebrate that mom at campus?

And Casey, man, we're so proud of you guys and what God is

doing. But here's the thing, He gives

us his presence. We are his people, but he's

gathered us so we can scatter. Listen what Peter says right

after that he goes, you're his chosen people, right?

You're, you're, you belong to him.

And then listen what he says in verse 11.

So now, dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers in this

world to abstain from sinful desires which war against your

soul. You know why we gather together?

Because we are in a war for our souls and we need the church

family. I need a church family.

He goes on to say this, not only do we need this, he says live

such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of

doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify your God

on the day he visits us. You know what he's saying?

It's about his purpose over a program.

See the church gathering. It's not just a program.

Do we have cue sheets here in a little bit we're going to sing.

People can come out or like, see, it's just a program.

No, it's not. When we gather, the reason why

we gather is because of the purposes of God.

Peter says this live such good lives where as Christians among

the pagans in your work, in your neighborhood, at your gym, on

the golf course, in the boardroom, everywhere live such

good lives because what ends up happening is this the presence

of God begins to break out. So here's why we need a purpose

because God made us for something bigger than ourselves.

Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 11 says this, that God has set

Ecclesiastes 3:11

eternity in the hearts of mankind that none of us can

fathom his plan. God set eternity in your hearts

and he's waiting for you to put your attention on him.

He's waiting for you to say, Oh God, you have so much more for

me than I ever have for myself. Matter of fact, this is what

Jesus prayed as he was going to the cross.

In John chapter 17, Jesus has this huddle moment with his

John 17 · chapter mention

disciples. He knows he's about ready to be

arrested and to go die on the cross.

They've been trying to kill him from his first sermon.

Jesus knows this. Nobody takes my life, but I lay

my life down. He goes, I'm about ready to go

lay my life down and listen what he prays.

He gathers his guys like a football huddle.

He's like huddle up, huddle up, fellas crossing family, huddle

up. Jesus wants to speak to you.

Listen what he says. He says my prayer, God, my

prayer is not that you would take them out of the world, but

that you'd protect them from the evil. 1 Do you hear that prayer

over your life? God doesn't want to take you out

of the world. He wants to send you into this

world. My prayer is not for them alone.

I pray also for those who will believe in me through their

message. If you've if you're not a

Christian yet here today or watching online or any of these

campuses, here's what you need to know.

Jesus has been praying for you since John seventeen, 2000 years

ago. He's been praying over you.

Roman says right now Jesus is interceding for us in heaven and

then this is his prayer that all of them would be one Father,

just as you are in me and I and in you.

May they also be in us so that the world may believe you have

sent me presents people purpose, crossing family.

Today. May your attention be on the

Savior who came, who died, and who rose.

Again, we're moving to a time of decision.

So let that truth settle in right here in this moment for

all of us in this room and online relish the fact that you

are sitting right now in the presence of God.

And if you want to take a look around you, you can.

But no, you could probably feel you were surrounded by the

people of God in a lot of you. You probably came into this room

or you you stumbled upon the feed and you're just like, I

want to encounter God. I want to encounter his

presence. I want to be around people.

But really what you're after is you want to know what is your

purpose like God, what is my purpose here on this earth?

And you're trying to discover that.

But I got to just be real with you.

There's some of you are listening to my voice in this

room or online that you can't live out the purpose God has for

you when you do not have an intimate personal relationship

with him. You can't do it God's way if

you've not trusted in his way. And so here's here's just kind

of the the truth of the matter in this moment.

For those of you who are living outside that relationship,

you've probably been responding in one of three different ways.

You've been in fight or flight or a freeze moment.

Maybe today you're still in that fight mode where you kind of

have your arm up and you're, you're fighting against God.

You're fighting off starting that relationship with him.

You're you, you have in your mind saying there's no way he

would accept me. There's no way that's for me.

There's no way he would ever do or accept for me because of all

the things that I've done in my past, even the things I did last

night. And so you're just fighting him.

Others of you, you've been in flight mode for I don't know how

long. Simply what you're doing is you

get really close to to trust in him and walking with him and

you're like, Nope, not for me. And so you run away, you turn

the other way and you go back to finding fulfillment and filling

your life with everything else except for trusting in his ways

and, and trusting in him. You're in this flight mode.

So you've been fighting, you've been flighting others to be in

this room. You've been in freeze mode.

And simply what that means is you're really close.

You know that you want to take a step of trusting Jesus as Lord

and Savior. But for some reason, when we get

to this time of decision, when you stand up and, and the pastor

invites you to take a move and to respond, your feet are stuck.

You can't get that one foot in front of the other.

You can't seem to to respond. You keep saying, well, maybe

next week. And, and So what you do is you

just stay frozen. You stay still, you don't

change, you don't move. But if I could encourage you

today, if that's your story, if you've been fighting or

flighting or freezing, not today.

Today you start walking with Jesus.

You take that step, you put your arm down and you simply just

inverse those arms and put them out and just say I surrender.

I choose you. I believe in you.

You confess your love and allegiance to Him.

You turn away from the old life. You turn away from those things

that have been bringing you fulfillment.

And you say, today I choose you. In just a little bit, the song

is going to start playing and there's going to be an

opportunity for you to respond, to lay your life down and give

it to Jesus to get out of that freeze moment.

Just take a step, some bold steps in front of each each

other one by one. And then there's going to be a

pastor right by the baptistry that you could talk to about

what it looks like to start that intimate personal walk with him.

I encourage you to do that today.

It's the best decision you could possibly make through the

matter. There's others of this in the

room who are who are Christians. We've taken that step.

But you're trying to figure out, well, what is what is my

decision moment look like today? You're probably in a fight,

flight, or freeze moment too. You're trying to figure out what

purpose God has for your life. You're trying to figure out what

has my attention more than Jesus right now, today, in just a

little bit, when the music starts for us, we can do the

same thing. Stop fighting against God.

Stop running away from God. Stop freezing in a moment and

come up to these steps. Get down on our knees.

Each and every single week we humble ourselves and we say,

God, I'm here, you have my attention.

What is the purpose you have for me?

How, how can I shine better in my environments that you put me

in? How can I speak when you ask me

to speak? How can I respond?

He's trying to get your attention today.

And the song that we're about to sing is there's some lyrics on

there where we simply say, Lord Jesus, you are Lord of all in

this moment. You are our cornerstone.

I build my life upon you. You are the foundation on which

everything in my life is set upon.

And so during this song, don't fight him.

Don't run away from him. Don't stay frozen.

Respond, move, worship, adore, give them your attention.

Would you stand with me? Let's let's pray and let's

respond in this moment, Jesus, you are a cornerstone.

You are a firm foundation. You are Lord of all, you're Lord

of this moment, you're Lord of our life, You're Lord and

Savior. You have rescued us.

God in just a little bit. We're going to we're going to

celebrate 9 lives who have said yes to you, Who said yes to you,

Jesus, who are going to follow you.

And but God, I pray for that person in this room or listening

to my voice right now. They've been fighting you.

They've been running away from you.

They've been freezing. God, I pray that you will give

them the boldness, the energy to just put that foot in front of

the other, to respond and to choose you and to declare Jesus.

You are their cornerstone. You are Lord of all.

And God, I pray for us as Christians that we would also

respond in a way whatever has our attention more than you, I

pray we lay those things down, we turn away from them, and we

worship and adore you in this moment of decision.

We love you and we praise you in Jesus name that I pray, Amen.